


Expectations

by EmpireofSocks (empireofsocks)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Garrison!Klance, Insecurity, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance is Determined, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9316862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empireofsocks/pseuds/EmpireofSocks
Summary: When Keith leaves, Lance looks for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my VLD Group Chat Secret Sant for Bo! Hope you enjoy~

There are a few choice things in his life that Lance doesn’t care to disclose.  Like, for example, the time he tried to surprise his family by making breakfast and ended up nearly burning their entire house down. Really, how was he supposed to know not to put a grease fire under water? That makes no sense, no sense at all. 

Not all of these things that Lance keeps to himself are all that silly. Granted, many of them are fairly idiotic, but some of them are different. Some of them aren’t so much things Lance is embarrassed about so much as things he can’t explain; things he’s afraid to show for fear they might be interpreted incorrectly. Not that he would know what that looks like; he doesn’t even know the “correct interpretation”. But it is these things that Lance keeps bottled in, that he avoids thinking about at all costs. Let mysteries remain mysteries, he thinks. Meddling never does any good. 

But one of these things, one of these mysteries, won’t leave Lance alone. Lying in his bunk at the Garrison, staring up at the darkness of the mattress above him, Lance can’t tear his mind away from the strange feeling that something is wrong. He feels like something is missing, something important. Something has changed, and he doesn’t like it.

Lance doesn’t sleep that night. He drags himself up slowly, falling into his usual routine despite his exhaustion. Breakfast, with Hunk; Astrophysics lecture, which feels quieter than usual; Morning cargo pilot simulation, which he nearly fails due to his sluggish mind; Lunch, with Hunk and Pidge. It isn’t until Intermediate Flight Theory that he realizes, with perfect clarity, exactly what is wrong. The chair in front of him, grey and spinny and uncomfortable as always, is empty. There’s nobody there blocking the screen. No fluffy black mullet, no obnoxious comments from it’s owner. No one angrily scribbling away or doodling complicated flight plans in his face. No  _ Keith.  _

Lance backtracks.  _ Where did he see Keith last? _ Scrolling backwards through his day, he realizes that he hasn’t seen Keith anywhere. Not at breakfast, not at lecture, not smirking down at him in simulation. Going back even farther, Lance realizes he hasn’t seen Keith all week.  _ He’s probably sick or something _ , Lance rationalizes. But the knowledge of Keith’s absence picks away at his brain, drawing his focus away from the lecture.  _ Why does this bother him so much? _

After lecture, Lance walks quickly back to the barracks, screeching to a halt when a door left slightly ajar comes into view. Lance walks past this door every day on the way to his own dorm, and it is never, ever open. Not even the slightest. Everyone knows that Keith likes to be left alone-- he’ll brush off anyone that tries to befriend him, and leaving his door invitingly open is the last thing he’d ever think of doing. Lance edges closer, peering slightly around the frame. The room is completely barren; too barren for even the likes of Keith. There’s no sheets on the bed, no books on the desk, not even a pair of shoes left in the closet. He’s gone. Keith is gone.

“Lance? What are you doing?” Lance jumps, startled by the familiar voice.

“Hunk! My man! I just, uh, I was looking for you! Yeah!” Lance blurts, laughing nervously as he backs away from Keith’s door.

“In Keith’s room?” Hunk asks skeptically. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally,” Lance says in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. “I was on my way to our room and just got distracted by this, uh, door! It isn’t usually open! I didn’t even know it was Keith’s!”

Hunk looks at him strangely. “Well,” he says, “It’s not his anymore. He got kicked out, some guys in my advanced engineering class were gossiping about it. He lashed out at a professor or something and got the sack. Moved out two nights ago.”

Lance gapes. Hunk coughs awkwardly. Lance continues to gape.

“Are you okay man?” Hunk asks, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, of course!” Lance says, finally coming to his senses. “I’m just tired or something, flight theory really took it out of me today. Figures, though! That asshat wouldn’t know proper behavior if it danced around in front of him in that stupid bright red jacket of his.”

Hunk laughs good naturedly. “Like you’d know it either, Mr. “let me thread the needle even though the instructor just said cargo planes can’t fly sideways!”

“Hey, how was I supposed to know the simulation docked points for broken cargo? It’s a simulation, the cargo isn’t even real!”

“It’s called common sense, Lance. Although with you, it doesn’t seem to be very common.”

 

~~~

 

The next day, Lance gets promoted to fighter pilot. It’s great, really it is. Sure, he’s having some trouble with the simulations, but he’ll get there! It’ll just take some time is all. But despite his joy at the promotion, the strange feeling persists. It lodges itself in his ribcage, quietly seeping through his bones, a delicate sort of uneasiness that he can’t quite ignore. It takes him two full weeks of pondering to put a name to the feeling. 

It’s a quiet sort of realization. Lance is standing at the pilot’s leaderboard, watching his score tick slowly upward as today’s points are added. Strangely, he doesn’t feel as excited as usual. He glances over his classmates scores, none of them noticeable enough to garner his attention for more than an instant. It is then that he realized the other thing that’s gone missing.  _ My competition!  _ Lance is floored. Fucking Keith! That bastard! Abandoning him with no good competition and taking away the best part of being in flight school? Making Lance  _ miss him? I’m not going to let him get away with this! _

In that moment, Lance makes a decision. He has to get Keith to come back. Mullet man doesn’t just get to drop out and leave his competition hanging! It’s unfair! Their rivalry was just getting started! And besides, Lance could use the challenge, the competition, the incentive to push harder. He needs someone to fire him up again. And Keith, that asshole, was the only person infuriating enough to do it.  _ This isn’t over, mullet. You’re not getting rid of me that easy. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith's got another thing coming....  
> I've uploaded the next two chapters already, I hope you enjoy them!  
> You can also find me @pocketpidge on tumblr, where I'll be posting updates for this fic. Happy reading!


	2. Chapter 2

The problem isn’t convincing Keith to come back. Lance has a whole host of reasons, and a hella effective set of puppy dog eyes to boot. He’s even thought about how to convince the board of admissions to let Keith back in. All he has to do is find the fucker, tell his ass to get back on track with some choice words, plead with the board a little bit, and bingo! Lance and Keith’s epic rivalry is ready to roll.

There’s just one, teeny-tiny, itty-bitty problem. Lance does not have even the slightest of an idea where this fucker ran off to. Keith never talked about home; he never talked about anything with anyone, much less Lance. Nobody knows where this idiot lives! Lance feels utterly useless. Here he is, fired and ready to get his rival back, and he’s stuck at step one. He even tries sneaking into Keith’s old room, looking for some leftover indication of where he went. But the room is empty, silent, devoid. All he finds is some dusty paperwork that must of fallen behind the desk, crumpled and blank. Lance sighs, smoothing out the paper on Keith’s barren desk. Scanning over it, he sees it’s a mailing form of some kind, advertising a motorcycle magazine. Useless. Even if it was Keith’s, it’s not filled out; the empty address line stares back at Lance, almost mockingly.

It is then that Lance has an inkling. No one knows where Keith lives-- but his school file might! That’s it! Lance can’t believe he didn’t think of it before. All he has to do is get into that file and he’s golden!

Waiting for curfew to pass so he can sneak into the records room is hard. Thinking of an excuse to tell Hunk is harder. He can’t say he’s doing anything involving mechanics, technology, or food; Hunk would come for sure. He and Hunk do nearly everything together, even the stuff that makes Hunk anxious like sneaking out to go party. Lance will admit he feels bad about that sometimes; he hates making the big guy anxious, but Hunk insists. He knows Lance hates to go anywhere alone. Finally, Lance comes up with a idea.

“You’re going to go call your sister? At midnight?” Hunk asks.

“Uh, yeah. She’s busy during the day, wanted to talk some things over. Cause, ya know, I’m just such a great brother that I make myself available to talk at any time. Even midnight!” Lance says, throwing in a smidge of pride for extra believability. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Hunk with the truth; he trusts the man with his life and more. It’s just that he doesn’t know if Hunk would understand. After all, Lance always professed to hating Keith’s guts; why would he want him to come back? And even if Hunk did understand, Lance feels like this is just the kind of thing he needs to do alone. It’s his rivalry that needs saving, his and Keith’s. Hunk doesn’t need to be dragged into it. Besides, lord knows what the idea of sneaking into the sealed record room would do for Hunk’s anxiety. Lance is hardly that cruel.

“Which sister is it?” Hunk inquires, drawing Lance out of his thoughts.

“Veronica! Yeah, yeah, it’s Veronica,” Lance declares, knowing full well that Hunk want nothing to do with that particular sister of his after she scathingly insulted one of his ingenious recipes.

“Oh, okay. I didn’t know you two called each other that often. Have fun, I guess,” Hunk says, turning back towards his study materials.

“I will! See you around, big guy,” Lance calls, lowering his voice as he slipped out the door.

 

~~~

 

Getting past the guards is a piece of cake. Lance has done it a million times, and usually with Hunk in tow. Sneaking by alone is easy; the guard’s haven’t changed their rotations in months, and Lance knows it like the back of his hand. Lance is used to sneaking around a house full of light sleeping kids; he knows how to get around a couple lazy, underpaid guards who couldn’t care less. The records room isn’t too far from the barracks either; it’s in the same hallway as the professors offices, tucked away in a quiet corner. The guards mainly patrol the barracks hallways, leaving the offices relatively unprotected. Lance sneaks quietly down the hallway, glancing quickly over his shoulder before pulling open the door to the records room and slipping inside.

Once inside, Lance turns around and carefully removes the invisible tape holding the lock bolt in place, letting the door lock behind him. Earlier this afternoon, he’d waited in the hallway, pretending to need to see a professor, until someone had gone into the records room. Once they had left, Lance had carefully catched the door and taped the lock bolt down, so the door could shut without locking. Looking for Keith’s records during the day was too risky; professors and faculty went in and out of that room at random. But no-one would notice the good old tape trick. Lance smiles to himself at his own bit of ingenuity; Hunk and Pidge may be the engineering and computer geniuses, but he’s got a few tricks of his own up his sleeve.

Satisfied with the locked door behind him, Lance ventures further into the room, eyeing the file cabinets. He walks past the first row, and the second, stopping halfway down the third row when the label changes from “Staff Records” to “Student Records -- A”. He walks forward slowly, watching the A labels change to B, C, D… Until finally, he reaches the K’s. Pulling out the cabinet drawer, Lance flips carefully through the folders. Kagan...Kirschstein...Koffe... _Kogane_ ! Yes! Lance pulls the file out triumphantly. _Time to find out where you’ve disappeared to, mullet man!_

Compared to the other files in the cabinet, Keith’s is small, fairly thin. Upon opening it, Lance finds just three documents inside, plus a small photograph of Keith paper clipped to the first page. Looking closer, he notes last semester’s grade report on top, then a scholarship letter under that. Neither include an address. The last piece of paper looks familiar-- it’s an application form, identical to the one Lance filled out years ago. _Bingo!_ Lance scans the page carefully. If he remembers correctly, personal information was at the bottom of the first page. Yes-- there’s Keith’s name… phone number… and address! There it is! Barely legible in Keith’s familiar scrawl, but still there: 3300 Warner Boulevard. Perfect! Lance pulls his phone out of his back pocket and takes a quick snapshot of the page.

Sliding the file back in place, Lance quietly shuts the drawer. He sneaks back out of the records room, down the hallway, through the barracks, and safely back into his dorm. Success! Glancing over at Hunk’s bed, he sees that his roommate is fast asleep and snoring. Lance tiptoes over to his desk, opening his laptop. Typing as softly as possible, he feeds the address from Keith’s file into Google. In just seconds, he’ll be able to... _wait, what?_

Lance can’t believe his eyes. This fucker. This absolute fucker. Keith lied on his application. There is no way that’s his address. There is no way, because according to all-knowing Google, 3300 Warner Boulevard is the fan mail address for one My Chemical Romance. That emo bastard! What the hell? Who puts some emo ass fan mail address down on an official application? Lance doesn’t get it. Like, he gets the choice, because no one who dresses like that doesn’t listen to MCR, but what is Keith trying to hide?

Just to check, Lance puts the phone number from Keith’s file into Google as well, fully expecting to find out that it’s Gerard Way’s personal bloody cell number. To his surprise, nothing comes up. Seems like it’s actually a legit number. Or maybe a made up one. Lance sighs. He can’t risk calling it now; he might wake up Hunk. Besides, it’s late, and he’s got an 8AM lecture in the morning. Closing his laptop, Lance resigns himself to sleep. He’ll deal with Keith and his idiocy in the morning.

 

~~~

 

Yet again, Lance finds himself distracted in class. The professor’s words wash over him, going in one ear and out the other. He can’t find it in him to focus; no matter how hard he tries, his mind keeps returning to the mystery that is Keith Mullet Man Kogane. He blames Keith for being so stupid; he needs to get that idiot back on board ASAP so things can go back to normal and he can get back to being focused. Lance just wants his exciting rivalry back, that’s all. He dismisses the lingering uneasiness in his belly, reassuring himself that this will all go away once he gets his rival back in the game. He just doesn’t like the change. That’s it, nothing more.

After class, Lance finds his way quickly back to his dorm. He’s got 45 minutes before Hunk gets out of class-- that is, 45 minutes of alone time to find Keith. He grabs his phone, pulling up the image of Keith’s form and punching in the number. It rings once… twice….

“Hello?” a sharp, unfamiliar female voice cuts through the line.

“Um, hi! Is, uh, Keith there?” Lance ventures unsurely.

“Keith? Keith who?” The voice replies.

“Oh, sorry, Keith Kogane? I’m a classmate of his from the Garrison.” Lance explains.

“Oh, Kogane? Haven’t seen him here for seven months.”

“But he does live with you?” Lance presses.

“Not anymore. That stupid kid got into more trouble than he was worth. Nah, we passed him along just like everyone else did. Don’t know which home he’s in now, if there’s even any left that he hasn’t pissed off.”

“Passed him along?” Lance asks, confused. What does that even mean?

“Yeah, to the next foster home. He wasn’t welcome here anymore.”

“I--”

“Look, kid, he’s not here, and I don’t know where he is. Now I’ve got four kids to look after, I really don’t have much time to dawdle on the phone. I can’t help you.” the voice snaps, sounding impatient.

“Oh, okay. I’ll let you go. Bye then, I guess.”

_Click._

Lance doesn’t know what to do with this information. He had no idea, no idea at all that Keith lived in foster homes. Slowly, his brain put the pieces together. If Keith lived in foster homes… than Keith didn’t have any relatives to take care of him. Keith didn’t have _family._ Stunned, Lance tries to imagine what that must be like. No doting mother, no proud father, no annoying but endearing siblings alongside you every step of the way. No family dinners, no holiday traditions, no nothing. No wonder Kogane had such a hard time making friends. Lance wouldn’t be the person he was without his family; he doesn’t think he’d be much at all without them.

The uneasy feeling in Lance’s chest swells suddenly, almost like it’s urging him to do something. Lifting his eyes from his now-black phone screen, Lance realizes that he can’t just leave this boy all alone, as much as he dislikes him. Without the Garrison, Keith has nothing. Keith has no family, no friends. Without meaning to, Lance has discovered Keith’s secret: the Garrison was the only thing Keith had. Lance has to get it back for him; he _has to._ He doesn’t know for what reason exactly he wants Keith to come back so badly; all he knows is that he’s the only one fighting to get Keith back. He can’’t give Keith a family, or even a friend; but he can give him one hell of a rivalry. And that, he supposes, is far better than nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *wiggles eyebrows* wow lance I wonder what your motivations could possibly be here


	3. Chapter 3

With all of his leads turning out to be dead ends, Lance starts searching for Keith the old fashioned way: by looking. Knowing that Keith doesn’t have a family or anywhere to go, Lance supposes he must still be around the Garrison somewhere. They are in the middle of the desert, and with the only transportation being for Garrison staff and students, dropout Keith can’t have gotten very far. Lance starts by mapping it out; he finds a large map of the desert, makes a copy via the student printer, and gets to work. He grids it out carefully, deciding to start with a 50 mile radius. 

Using his trusty tape trick, Lance also breaks into the engineering wing and smuggles a very basic prototype drone back to his dorm. He remembers Hunk mentioning the project to him, telling him that they’d decided to keep his as a model for next year. Lance figure it would be sitting in storage until then; nobody would miss it if he took it out for a little reconnaissance. 

And so, whenever Hunk fell asleep early and Lance had the time, he snuck out to the roof of the barracks, map and drone in tow. He’s not entirely sure why he’s still looking for Keith; at this point, it’s become something of a habit, a hobby even. He goes up to the roof; pilots the drone out to whatever grid square he’s checking tonight; then waits for the thermal scans to come in. He never finds anything more than the occasional animal. Some nights, Lance feels a little bit crazy, scanning the desert for someone he’s not even sure is out there. It’s like finding a needle in haystack, except there’s like a million haystacks and you’re not even sure this is the one you dropped the needle in. But still, he persists. He figures that as long as this weird, seemingly Keith-related feeling in his chest keeps going, so will he. Keith is still an asshole, but he’s an asshole that Lance’s mind won’t let him forget. He doesn’t question it; he’ll figure it out later, once he finds Keith. Which he will. Definitely. 

 

~~~

 

Three months later, Lance decides to take a break. Between the increased classwork of a fighter pilot and the endless search for one Asshole McMullet, he’s been stretched pretty thin. It only takes half an hour of cajoling and convincing to get Hunk on board with sneaking out to hit the town; that simulation was rough today, and Lance knows Hunk could use some loosening up time. Heck, Lance figures he might as well make this a party and drag Pidge along too. They look like they could use some good old fashioned party fun in their lives.

As it turns out, Lance is not the only one who takes to rooftops at night. While following Pidge, he discovers that while he prefers the barrack roof, Pidge takes their technology on top of the cafeteria. Huh. Whod’ve thunk. Pidge’s stuff looks a lot fancier than his though. No matter; he’ll bother them anyways. They could use a break from all the technology.

Unfortunately, Lance’s plan for the evening does not at all go according to schedule. Honestly, he could just kick himself. He can’t believe he didn’t think of it. All this time, while he’s been searching night after night for Keith by drone, he could've just staged a spaceship crash and the space obsessed idiot would have come running right to him.  _ Obviously.  _

Anyways, while Lance is internally screaming, the one and only Keith Kogane is breaking into the crash site. To save  _ Lance’s fucking hero.  _ Pushing aside the uncertain relief flooding his chest at the sight of Keith, Lance fixates on his irritation instead. Lance did not just spend three months of his life trying to find this asshole only for him to steal his fucking glory! Oh no. That was not happening. 

“No way! He is not going to beat us in there!” Lance takes off, sliding down towards the crash site. “Fucking Keith!” He cannot believe this. The guy he’s supposed to be helping, trying to one up him and steal his hero? Can you say  _ rude? _

As he makes his way down, Lance hears shouting and loud crashes coming from within the site, where Keith had entered not moments before. Hitting the ground running, Lance scrambles through the doors, making his way towards the noise. After jogging down a long corridor, he comes to a set of sliding doors which swoosh open, revealing one angry looking Keith Kogane helping Shiro to his feet.

“Oh no. No, no, no you don’t. I’m saving Shiro.” Lance says, ignoring the mounting emotion in his chest at the sight of Keith. Now is not the time to analyze feelings.

“Who are you?”

_ Ouch.  _ “Who am I?” Lance exclaims, refusing to acknowledge the sinking sensation he feels at Keith’s words. “Uh, the name’s Lance?”  _ Maybe he’s just got temporary memory loss from the… Fight or whatever. _

Keith’s face is still painfully blank. 

“...We were in the same class at the Garrison?” Lance tries.

“Oh. Were you an engineer?” 

“No! I’m a pilot! We were, like, rivals! You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck!” Lance retorts. Keith looks utterly lost.  _ This guy doesn’t have a clue who I am. What the fuck. _

Lance wants to curl up into a ball and die. He can’t believe he’s been this stupid. He’s  _ wasted _ three months of his life looking for this stupid, stupid, pilot who doesn’t even know he exists. God, did this bastard care about anyone besides himself? Does he even acknowledge the people around him? What an asshole! 

Lance takes a deep breath.  _ Now is not the time, _ he thinks. 

“Whatever, Keith. Let’s get out of here!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short! It was longer originally, but I decided to move the last third into the next chapter for Maximum Angst :~) It'll hopefully be up within the week! Progress updates can be found on my tumblr @spacedumplings ~


End file.
